


Like an Act of War

by waltzmatildah



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 12:40:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4020127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers (kind of) for 3.06: <i>Certain Agonies of the Battlefield</i>. My desperate attempt at fix-it-fic for the ONE canon pairing I have dared ship in YEARS…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like an Act of War

(when the truth is like a stranger…)

*

He turns his back on Sarah and walks away.

One foot  
in front of  
the other  
like the good little tin soldier he’d never quite managed to become.

She calls to him once, twice…

Paul, she says. Paul.

(He’s learned that it’s easier when he’s not  
looking at her  
touching her  
tasting her on his tongue.)

She sounds nothing like  
_Beth._

Paul, she says. Paul.

 

 

There’s a chill settling  
solid  
inside the splits in his skin. 

Icebergs forming with every thump and thud of his heart as the never-ending _heat_ this hellhole seems built upon rapidly cools.  
Spills out and over his fingertips.  
Leaves a trail of blood-black-red cookie crumbs in the sand as his feet keep up their rhythm.

(One foot  
in front of  
_oh…_  
He’s already covered that part.)

He can’t hear her anymore…

 

 

_We all fall down…_

 

 

The plan he’d been hastily piecing together since the moment his own knife disappeared deep inside him had been refreshingly straightforward. This much he remembers with a startling kind of clarity…

Unfortunately,  
he can’t seem to remember  
_the plan itself_.

He thinks,  
absurdly,  
that maybe plans are made and kept in spleens.  
Or livers.  
And his are leaking details like rain  
falls from  
clouds.

He pauses for a beat, lets his hand fall forward so that he might read the blood pooled,  
pooling,  
in his palm.

(Paul, he thinks he sees spelled out there. _Paul_.)

 

 

_Ah, yes…_

He remembers now.

 

 

There are 

(guns  
biological weapons  
super soldiers  
armored vehicles  
IEDs)

 _grenades_.

And though this is not  
about him.  
And though this has never been  
about him.  
He thinks he might like a little poetry to end.

He knows he’ll have to time the punch line  
just  
just  
just right.

Too soon and he’ll bring hell down on her head before she’s had time to  
_run_.  
Too late and well…

Too late and it’ll all be _too late_.

 

 

Miller is still sprawled to the side of the tunnel up ahead. One eye open, one eye closed. 

Both eyes dead.

See you soon soldier, he thinks, slow blinks,  
_sinks_.

 

 

(The gruff huff of Rudy’s laugher echoes  
echoes  
echoes…

 

Paul, she says. Paul.)

 

 

Heavy footfalls rouse him then, which makes no sense.  
It’s supposed to be over. Bullets disappeared into his chest and running…  
Screaming…  
Collapsing…

Gone.

No sense.  
No sense.

His hands touch his face and his fingertips are numb and his lips are numb but his teeth are chattering and his eyelids lift and he sees his knees, folded neatly in the dirt.

There are heavy footfalls, they rouse him then.

(Again)

From behind, he hears them coming fast  
methodical  
deliberate  
_frantic_.

From in front they’re slower,  
uneven  
shuffling  
shuffling  
shuffling.

His blood is roaring inside his skull and he thinks this means he must have some left.

 _Okay then_.

 

 

Mark appears. He’s leaning heavily on his cane, like he’s been running, and there’s a gun hanging loosely between his thumb and forefinger.

Why are you running, Mark?, he wants to ask.  
Are you going to shoot me, Mark?, he wants to know.  
I think I killed your brother, Mark, he wants to say.

Words form. He doesn’t hear them spoken aloud.

But Miller is a camouflaged corpse at Mark’s feet and so he guesses it’s all redundant now anyway.

I’m so 

(tired  
cold  
thirsty  
lonely  
scared)

 _sorry._

 

 

Paul, she says. Paul.

 

 

The _fast, methodical, deliberate, frantic_ barrels into him from behind.

His chin hits his chest. The agony that pulses through his torso, a degree of  
intense  
he can’t begin to fathom.

Her hands are on his shoulders and his arms and his face and his chest.  
Her hands are pushing through his hair and bouncing over his lips and dipping low, familiar, pressing against the pulse point on his neck.

Never stop touching me, Sarah, he wants to tell her. Please, please  
please…

But he’s hauled upright then. (And his world slides to  
yellow  
and orange  
and the most faded pale blue he’s ever seen.)

 

 

His right foot is still trying, he notes. Keeping up some semblance of  
_functionality_.  
He’s not sure where his left has gone…

They follow blood-black-red cookie crumbs all the way back to the gate in the stone wall. The bolt he vaguely remembers having locked, little more than bent scrap-metal now, forgotten in the dust alongside the remnants of his own desperate declaration.

(Sarah, he wants to say. Sarah.)

 

 

They lower him backwards then, and down,  
and down  
and down.

Mark and Sarah and Helena and he doesn’t know when that happened or how that happened but Helena’s hands are under his head, and her eyes are looking at his eyes looking at her eyes as the three of them work together to  
hold him  
carry him  
sustain him

 

 

save him.


End file.
